Nishiki

Anyone know anything about these bikes. Is this a good brand. Are replacement parts easy or hard to come by. Thanks

 

Yes, it's a well-known brand Japanese made bicycle in '80s. You don't expect it to be a good bicycle performance-wise in todays standard but it's a good bicycle reliability-wise.
Replacement parts may not be readily available as brand new because of many changes bike parts had gone through since '80s. Best bet is to go to your local bike shop and ask if they have the old parts. They usually keep all the parts taken out from the old bikes and rarely throw away. If one shop says they don't have it, try the next untill you find it. Consider it as a part of the fun of restoring it. The shop people are usually co-operative.

 

I had a Nishiki (see username). What can I say, it's your typical garage sale bike. I believe it used Suntour Honor but don't give the gruppo a second thought because that old stuff was much much more interchangeable than bikes are today.

The rear axle design could be a bit of a weak point for commuters like me. You'll smack it and ruin it sooner or later unless you only ride on bike paths or are lighter than 150-175. I've never gotten more than 500 or so miles out of a pre-freehub style wheel before it began to wobble. Nashbar has freehub style rear 27X1-1/4 inch wheels though.

In general, low end '70's 10 and 12 speed road bikes are a dime a dozen (actually $5-15 even in good shape) because there's so many at garage sales and thrift shops. A bike of that type would have to really have something to set it apart before I paid more.

 

CRITICAL: If you find such a bike you MUST find a way to lube it up before you ride it or you may ruin the bearings.

The grease inside the hubs, bottom bracket, and headset is usually DRIED OUT.

Hask, if you haven't already ridden the bike then drip some oil into the hubs, pedal and steering bearings for your test rides. Then if you like the bike REPACK THE BALL BEARINGS!!!!!!!!!

I had a Murray from 1990 which was starting to show the condition pretty strongly so I am not talking about really really old bikes.

 

Where are you located? In Canada, Nishiki was a division of Norco in the 80's. They made bikes from the beginner range to the mid-level, double-butted chromoly range. I had a midrange chromoly bike with Suntour, and it was pretty decent. Weight was 24 lbs, which was ok in the day.

 

This bike belongs to a friend. It was given to him by his Father-In-Law.
My friend is about 240lbs. but does a lot of walking. He figures he'll use the bike to ride to and from the park where he walks 6 miles per day. The ride to the park is probably about 10 miles each way. After talking to my friend it doesn't sound like he plans on taking care of the bike, probably will just ride it into the ground and then go around bad mouthing road bikes. As he said, when I was a kid I owned a Schwinn for 10 years. I never had to do anything to that.
Some people. Anyway when he started giving me details about the bike, such as tire size, air pressure, etc I was stumped. Then he showed me a bike on sale on e bay by the Toronto police dept. From what I'm reading here I'll just probably walk away from this whole thing and let the chips, or parts, fall where they may.

 

If it's this bike: http://cgi.ebay.ca/Nishiki-Racing-Bike-Police-Rite-Auctions_W0QQitemZ140029125409QQihZ004QQcategoryZ98084QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

it's a very basic bike and worth $10-20. You may spend $30 to get it going then it's worth basically the amount of bus tickets for a little while. I should mention that I bought a $20 mountian bike at a police auction 3 years back, thinking I just wanted something to get around. It was a piece of junk! Gears didn't work, nor did brakes, freewheel didn't coast - a waste of $20. The following year I got a decent old basic bianchi at a garage sale for $25, spent another $100 on tires tubes etc... and got a very rideable bike for around town. So I would hesitate on the police auctions.